ABSTRACT
Two independent research areas in developmental psychology have recently found spheres of important intersection. The two areas, research on infant and child temperament and work on shyness and rejection and early childhood, have had separate, and in general, non-overlapping paths. Research in both areas has been concerned with measurement and definitional issues. For quite some time, temperament researchers relied on maternal report/questionnaire data for the measurement of individual differences. These data were used to develop notions regarding the stability and composition of temperamental factors. In addition, questionnaire data were factor analyzed to define traits or dispositions which constituted temperament (Goldsmith, Buss, Plomin, Rothbart, Thomas, Chess, Hinde, & McCall, 1987). The temperament research area has undergone a great deal of change since Thomas, Chess, and Birch (1968) first outlined seven basic traits and the notion of goodness-of-fit. The change has been in the direction of more laboratory or home based observation of infant behavior and the use of behavioral measures to derive conceptually driven factors describing individual differences in infant personality (Matheny & Wilson, 1981; Rothbart, 1981; Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981).
